brand

The four questions your brand positioning research must answer

Posted by Chris Grams June 8, 2011 7 Comments Filed Under brand, brand community, brand positioning, brand positioning research, community, foot in the future, foot in the present, Henry Ford, Kevin Keller, North Star, positioning, research, research homework, The Ad-free Brand 2 Votes To create great brand positioning, you must do your homework. In a brand positioning project, this homework mostly consists of doing some research about the brand ahead of time. But how do you organize your research? In this post, Ill teach you a simple tip I learned from Dr. Kevin Keller that will help you frame your positioning research in a way that will ensure you find the answers you need. When doing research to inform a brand positioning project, I am not satisfied until I can answer the following four questions: 1. What does the brand community currently believe about or value in the brand? 2. What might the brand community believe or value about the brand in the future? 3. What does the organization currently claim about the brand? 4. What would the organization like the brand to become down the road?

Why are the answers to these four questions so important?

Great brand positioning has one foot in the present and one foot in the future. The research were doing to answer these questions helps us understand exactly where each foot should be planted. The Foot in the Present By studying what your brand community members currently believe the brand stands for and what they value about it today, youll begin to understand their current experience of the brand. Yet your communitys experience of the brand can be very different than how you see or talk about the brand inside the organization. So the brand research should study the brand from both an internal and external perspective. Often organizations will notice gaps or inconsistencies between the brand they claim to be and the brand their community sees or experiencesthe brand promise-brand experience gap. Once you deeply understand what your community currently believes or values about the brand and compare this to what you currently claim about the brand, youll have a complete picture of where your foot in the present is planted. Youll see clearly how big the gap is between your brand promise and brand experience. Only then can you begin the work of building brand positioning that closely aligns the brand promise claimed with the brand experience delivered. The Foot in the Future But a brand that is only concerned with the present state of affairs is a brand in stagnation. Youll want your brand to grow, prosper, and remain relevant down the road. So you should also try to understand what the brand community might believe or value about the brand in the future. What directions might people give you permission to take the brand? Where do they not want you to take it? What would they value in the brand that you dont provide today? What does the organization do today that people would rather not see you continue to do down the road? Equally important is that you strongly consider where you want to take the brand. Remember the apocryphal Henry Ford quote, If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Sure, to remain relevant you should deeply understand what the community members want the brand to become, but do not become a slave to their vision. You might have entirely different and amazing places youd like to take the brand that your customers or other community members cant yet see. So, in order to understand where your foot in the future is planted, you should seek to understand both what your community would believe or value in the brand and what you want the brand to become down the road. Where Great Positioning Lives

Great positioning lives where all four answers intersect. It is a bridge between your current brand experience and the brand youd like to become in the future. It deeply reflects the brand you currently see while lighting the path to what it could become. Great positioning lives in all four of these quadrants at once. It can be like the North Star, guiding the organization toward the future, while paying homage to the past and making clear connections between things that resonate about the brand with both your organization and your brand community.

So where should you look for data that will help you answer these four questions and start on the road to great brand positioning?

Objectives of research: 1. Get reactions of current customers that use Foppex services. 2. Find out their buying criteria, rational and emotional benefits, fiber optic cables market awareness and current Foppex image. 3. Mangers will use these finding to find position the company on the market.

Goals: Find out customers buying criteria Test their market awareness and competition perceptions Find out their current image of Foppex. (If a friend would need to buy f.b for his business what would you tell him, knowing that you already use Foppex services.)

Three projective and enabling techniques The following represents a selection of the exercises that we have found useful in providing both great insights into how people perceive the employer brand, and a rich and stimulating source of outputs for illustrating the key findings of the research. Exercise 1. Sunny side up
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Best of: What would you put in the advert to present the very best of what the organization can offer? Heroes: Who would appear in the organizations hall of fame and why? Legend: How would Disney tell the organizations story if they made it into a film? Greatest hits: What records would you choose for a celebratory party album? Perfect day: Describe a perfect working day.

Exercise 2. The shadow side

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Rough guide: What dont they tell you at induction that you need to know to survive and prosper? Villains: Who are the black sheep of the organization, and why? Obituary: What would be written on the organizations tombstone if it went out of business in the next few years? Hell: What would be the key characteristics of a typically hellish day?

Exercise 3. Personification
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Personality If the organization were represented by a single person, what type of person would that be? (It often helps to start with a few iconic examples, like Marks & Spencer, Nike or McDonalds to warm people up.) Once people have entered the spirit of this exercise you can also ask a series of more specific questions like: What kind of car would they drive? What kind of paper would they read? What kind of pets would they keep? etc. Employer vs customer brand If the employer brand name is the same as the product/service brand, divide the group in two, and ask one sub-group to focus on the employer brand, and the other the customer brand (as they would expect customers to see it). Brand party Repeat the above exercise for a number of your main rivals, and then describe what would happen if they all met at a party. Describe how they would behave. Who would get on with whom? Who would dance all night? Who would spend the whole night talking in the kitchen? etc. Celebrity Who would be the most appropriate celebrity to represent the organization as it would like to see itself? And as it actually is? Organizational stereotypes How would you describe a typical cast of employees from the organization?

Respondents project their feelings and beliefs about other people or objects. In doing so, they reveal feelings and beliefs about themselves. With sensitive subjects, the technique works well. Four Practical Projective Techniques Here are four practical and simple techniques. This is not an exhaustive list.
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Metaphors, Analogies, and Similes Third-Party Projections Role-Playing Associations

Metaphors, Analogies, and Similes A metaphor represents or explains something in terms of another. Metaphors explain complex or new subjects [target domains] by using a familiar subject [source domain]. Metaphors are a window to the mind. The purpose of understanding metaphors is to understand peoples mindset and feelings about something. Most importantly, metaphors can reveal underlying emotions about a target domainsuch a product or brand. And, one can infer whether emotions are positive, negative, or neutral. You can use the results from metaphor techniques to develop advertising, brands, sales pitches, and to support product or brand positioning. Here is a simple sentence completion exercise using similes. Ask respondents to complete the sentence. My cell phone is like a Here are some results at the category level for cell phones. A cell phone is like a best friend. My cell phone is part of my body. A cell phone is like my wallet. I would never leave home without it. A cell phone is like a lifeline now. Leaving it behind is like cutting off the oxygen supply. A cell phone is like a leash.

The results show cell phones are a necessity for a segment of consumers. A minority find them annoying. Besides sentence completion, you can also ask respondents to associate a product or brand to pictures and images. And, you can ask them to draw pictures. Another way to elicit metaphors is to ask respondents to complete storyboards. Look for metaphors, analogies and similes. Think about what feelings and emotions they reveal. Judge if they are positive, neutral or negative. Third-Party Projections With this technique, you ask respondents to describe what other people are doing, thinking, feeling, believing, and saying. Ask respondents to project to a third-party. Here are some example questions. What does your friend think about brand X? What does company X think about you? Who uses brand X? What is the real reason they use it? Ask follow-up questions and probe answers, using the third person. Use third-party projections for sensitive subjects. In other words, when people hide or deny their real thoughts, feelings, or beliefs. Role Playing You ask respondents to assume a role and act the part. It is a variant of third-party projection. If you were the product manager, what would you do to improve the product? If you were the CEO of this company, what would you do to reduce customer complaints? If you were the creative director, what would your ad say? If you were in your friends shoes, what would you do? Use role-playing when asking for product or advertising recommendations. Associations

You ask respondents to link a word or image to a category, product, brand, or event. Then ask how the association ties to the topic. You get people to bind one concept to another. Often associations produce metaphors, analogies, and similes. Some association techniques include word associations, imagery associations, and personifications. Here are examples, Word Associations Provide a prompt in the form of a word, phrase, or sentence and ask respondents to associate something with it. When you think of your service provider, what is the first thing that comes to mind? What comes to mind when you hear the term customer service? When you see brand X, what image comes to mind? Imagery Associations Show people an image, or ask them to bring or select an image. Images are pictures, drawings, or illustrations. Then, ask people to describe the image. Ask how it links to a product, brand, object, or person. Also, ask the respondents to imagine an image and describe it. Please select a picture that best represents product X. How does the picture speak about product X? How does the image describe product X? What does each person in this picture feel about brand Y? Ask several follow-up questions about how the association relates, and probe to clarify. Personification Associations Personification asks respondents to give human characteristics to products, services, or brands. If your Volvo could talk, what would it say to you?

If brand X were a person, what would he or she look like? How does your digital camera feel about you? Personification is fun. The challenge of personification is interpretation of data and analysis.